And the Razzie for Worst Picture of 2010 goes to...
The Last Airbender
Everyone in the world had the exact same reaction to the news that Paramount had chosen M. Night Shyamalan to direct The Last Airbender
And remember this was back in 2010 when Shyamalan still had an ok reputation...not anymore.
His name used to be the first thing they showed you in a trailer. Now
they try to hide it.
He had made 2 truly fantastic films, 2 highly problematic films that still a lot going for them and 2
uniquely terrible films.
But as far as a batting average goes, there was still reason to think that
Shyamalan could figure out his old magic again and get back on track.
Questioning the choice of Shyamalan was really more about genre. Shyamalan is a thriller horror director.
So, he basically needed to learn a different filmmaking language to direct an
action-adventure fantasy film. Then again, before directing the Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson had only directed one drama film, Heavenly Creatures.
While the rest of his filmography was horror comedy. So, I can see that from a studio
perspective, that maybe there was reason to think Shyamalan could do it, too. The problem
is that while every director has certain quirks, certain
storytelling tendencies and techniques that characterize their films, M. Night Shyamalan's quirks are his curse,
especially in The Last Airbender. So, what exactly are these quirks? Well, the obvious one is his love for twist endings
but it goes way deeper than that.
He likes stories with a small group of characters in very few locations: a house, a village, an
apartment building. Three to four main characters; people in isolation dealing with one specific problem; twist at the end.
There is a Shyamalan film.
This is as far away as you can get from The Last Airbender which features an ensemble cast in an epic story sprawling several continents.
He likes stories that build slowly and deliberately,
very slowly and deliberately. Again an instinct he needs to work against when making a fast-paced
fantasy film. His characters are also typically not charismatic at all. They are often silent and
contemplative. Everyone on the TV show might as well be high all the time. Even though he writes thrillers,
he doesn't film car chases, shootouts, fist fights or really any kind of action at all. The Last Airbender
is a martial arts property. We'll talk more about that in a bit.
But probably the most under reported
aspect of his style is this: he consistently writes short
films. With the exception of The Happening, all of his movies before The Last Airbender fell within the same
3-minute range. That's an amazing level of consistency. Too bad he wasn't as consistent with the quality. Here's a quote from Shyamalan,
So you've got a director
who is very accustomed to the pacing of 90-minute thrillers, attempting to take that kind of storytelling and
superimpose it onto the structure of an action-fantasy blockbuster.
I really feel that The Last Airbender is a film that died a death from a thousand cuts, both in the script and in the
editing room. This is the reason so much of the dialogue is expositional.
He's shoving 2-1/2 hours of story into 90 minutes. Sometimes you can even see the cuts. Like here, where Sokka tells Katara,
"Try to talk him out of it." And then, without anything in-between, Aang leaves and Sokka says, "I guess your talk didn't work."
There's definitely a scene missing here. You get the sense that Shyamalan had a script that was rich in character detail and drama,
but that he just kept cutting it down until he had squeezed all the life out of the story. Especially when it comes to
As I stated earlier, Shyamalan typically avoids action in his films.
Which is a good thing because he's terrible at it. In "Signs," the climactic action scene of the film where the characters finally face off
against an actual alien feels extraordinarily
artificial. So, the scene is about Mel Gibson's character regaining his faith
and we watch him as he realizes that everything that seemed random before has all been part of a plan,
preparing him for this encounter. But in order to sell that ideal
we've got to wait for Mel to look around the room at each
individual object in real time. The alien, the water, the bat. It's not so much a fight as it is a staring contest.
In Unbreakable, a film about a superhero, the only action is this shot of Bruce Willis
strangling a guy. Again Shyamalan style actively involves
avoiding action scenes. In The Village, Bryce Dallas Howard getting chased in the forest is
unintentionally comical because he couldn't be bothered to film at night. And it's almost like he invented the entire story concept of The Happening
so that he wouldn't have to do action scenes, since the bad guys are, you know, plants.
Yeah, that happened. In The Last Airbender, the first real action beat is in the Earthbender Prison and everyone knows how dumb this scene is.
The Earthbenders should bend their way out of the prison, but they don't because they're depressed.
I guess. "Why are you acting this way?" That guy
knows what I mean.
But whatever, that's not even the worst part about this scene. Every element of the action is frustrating: the special effects, the
choreography and the cinematography. Let's start with the special effects. In
2014, someone claiming to have worked on the film made a forum post on Avatar Spirit detailing some of the
behind-the-scenes drama with the film. Now,
I'm not going to take anything posted anonymously on a forum at face value
but here's the argument in a nutshell: the poster says that even with the
$150 million budget, the production
just didn't have enough money. The opening of the film, shot in Greenland, was very expensive and the film was rebudgeted
afterwards when they realized that the bending scenes couldn't be done with practical effects. No, duh!
So the rest of the film was made in and around Philadelphia.
This is apparently a high school and the Earth Kingdom is in Reading, Pennsylvania the Northern Water Tribe was filmed inside an old aircraft hangar.
The studio then handed most of the budget over to Industrial Lights and Magic to do all of these special effects
but then didn't give them enough time to do the work as they wanted to rush the movie into the theaters and make a quick
buck off the name recognition.
Which is why you end up with scenes that don't have any bending effects in them when they clearly should and why this guy shoots
a tiny pebble. But from where I'm sitting, even if there were budget problems with the special effects
they'd still be dealing with footage that included a silly six man synchronized dance. Anyway,
let's talk about the choreography and the cinematography. The action scenes actually have the same problem that the writing does.
It's only able to communicate a single idea at a time. The camera swoops around
but you only ever get the feeling that one person is actually
moving and that everyone else is just waiting for their turn, waiting for the camera to come to them. Like what's that guy doing in
the background here? This guy shoots fire while everyone else in the background waits.
And then they shoot a rock and Aang is just standing there.
There's no thrill to the cinematography, no focus because Shyamalan insists on filming action in one long take.
There's two stories going on. You've got the main characters vs. Firebenders, and then there's the Earthbenders vs. Firebenders
but because of the nature of the long take we can only look at one at a time.
So the other just awkwardly
pauses until we get to it. Having them play out at the same time and editing them together like every other action scene would be
way more natural. But again
this is Shyamalan, it's Shyamalan hallmark
and he almost can't help himself from doing it. Seriously,
every action scene is done in a long take. I do think that this one from later in the film is better though because at
least we're following one character and things are still happening in the background.
But the problems are even worse in The Blue Spirit rescue scene. Now, The Blue Spirit is one of my favorite episodes
of the TV series.
It's the one that makes you really recognize that there is more to Zuko than we've been led to believe
and it makes you want to see Aang and Zuko work together one day. Everything about the episode
reinforces this. Just take a look at this escape scene and let's count how many times they save each other during the fight. So, to
start things off, Zuko shows up to rescue Aang in the first place so plus 1 for him.
Then, it looks like Aang could escape pretty easily, but Zuko gets in trouble
so Aang goes back to help him. Aang throws The Blue Spirit onto a wall. Aang helicopters across while Zuko deflects
4 spears. Zuko fights off a guy that was attacking Aang and Aang blasts away the guys fighting Zuko.
Aang then comes up with a plan and Zuko follows it immediately. Aang protects Zuko from the fire blast. When Zhao says that the Avatar
must be captured
alive,
Zuko threatens to kill Aang and while this seems like it is a move against Aang it also ensures their escape. Aang makes a dust
cloud to cover up their tracks, and then, most importantly, he saves Zuko even after realizing
he is The Blue Spirit. The close score indicates that both of them were helping each other. The point of the scene is to show
that they could make an extremely effective team if they weren't enemies in the war. It's why two seasons later when you're watching this moment
you're thinking about this moment.
"Hold your fire!"
And it's this element which is more or less
missing in the choreography
of the film. First thing that happens when the action starts is that they split up. Aang spends the
majority of the scene in this weird
practice ring
and the bad guys are too far away to feel like a threat. So, the scene just hangs in limbo where it hasn't really even
started but it's still just wasting time. Meanwhile, Zuko is out there somewhere fighting for his life
I assume, but we don't see it, so we don't feel it.
It's only at the very
end of the scene that Aang goes back to help Zuko and we get to see them fighting together and for a couple of seconds
it's actually not bad. Zuko blocks a fireball for Aang.
So that's nice! Though sometimes Zuko swings his swords and like doesn't hit anything
but Shyamalan still put it in the film in the centre of frame and in slow motion, just to annoy me!
Anyway, the point is that you've got to remember why you put action scenes and movies in the first place.
It's not just for cheap thrills and explosions.
They are opportunities to explore character.
But the biggest crime about all of this is that after Aang and Zuko
escape, Aang leaves without a single word said to Zuko and in the context of this movie that doesn't really make much sense. In the
TV show Aang wonders if they could have been friends if their circumstances were different. Zuko responds like this,
"Do you think we could have been friends?"
It's a heartbreaking little moment and an important one. In the film, Aang has only met Zuko one time before when he arrested him at
the beginning of the movie.
But Zuko didn't hurt anyone. He didn't even fight and he pretty much just watched him escape.
So Aang actually doesn't even have that much to go on to judge Zuko whereas he did in the TV show and
opportunities to have opposing characters talk instead of fight really should not be missed like this.
There's a throwaway line near the end of the movie that touches on this, "We can be friends you know."
But it's not earned. It feels like they forgot to film it for the earlier scene
and then just threw it in here. "Is it some kind of spirit, commander?" "Not at all?"
Wait, how does he know this? I thought Zhao was the guy who believed in spirits?
I mean he keeps yammering about them to the Fire Lord!
So, what, does he know what every single spirit looks like? How is that? Have you been to the spirit world? Hey, quick question:
can you touch things there?
Appa is invisible in this movie. Which is pretty impressive considering
He's a 10-foot-tall, six-legged, flying, furry mythical beast.
I can find maybe two shots in the whole movie where you can see his face clearly. Why aren't they showing his face?
Oh, God kill it with firebending!
Yeah, so clearly the CGI was just not up to the task of bringing Appa to life on screen.
And if you're making a Last Airbender movie and can't rely on making Appa your fan favorite comic relief character,
you might as well just not! Seriously, people love Appa!
He's the character everyone can agree on. You see, while most big action
franchises target younger male audiences, The Last Airbender has always had wide appeal. Now there are plenty of reasons why female
audiences like this show,
but one of them is definitely Appa. His presence on the show is one of the primary draws for a lot of fans.
He's the adorable sidekick mascot character.
It's baffling that the studio didn't make sure that they got this right so that they can make Scrooge McDuck levels of money on
lunchboxes.
But this also speaks to a larger issue in the film which is that the film lacks a sense of life and movement.
There is some great
behind-the-scenes footage of Bryan Konietzko, the co-creator of Avatar: The Last Airbender,
acting out how different scenes in the show would play out to make it easier for the animators and what you notice
immediately is how active he is. How
exaggerated his movements are and how much emotion they convey. All of which translates to the show.
"What say to the price of one copper piece?"
"Okay, 2 copper pieces!"
In most of the scenes in The Last Airbender, the characters stand still. Move!
Do something! Take a look at Scott Pilgrim vs.The World,
a film based on a graphic novel and inspired by videogame aesthetics. The entire movie, well, moves.
It's a surreal approach and not something that would work for every movie
but with this specific property and these
specific characters, a more lively approach would have done wonders for the film. Especially when it comes to your mascot
characters of Appa and Momo.
But then again, that's probably a lot to ask seeing as the movie can't even get a basic establishing shot right.
First impressions are everything. The way a movie
introduces a person or a setting is going to have a big impact on how you think about them forever.
Just take a look at the greatest character introduction ever put to film. Without saying a word you completely
understand who Captain Jack Sparrow is. He thinks highly of himself. He makes his own path.
He faces danger regularly. He comes up with clever solutions. You like him right off the bat and that never changes...
unfortunately. A lot of things can make for a great intro. Maybe it's an unexpected reveal. "Whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you
stranger."
A dash of the eccentric.
A moment of genuine fright.
Or just a slick one-liner, "Mister..." "Bond,
James Bond." The movie squanders this potential again and again, but nowhere more egregiously than with the Fire Lord.
Here's the first time we see him. "Sire. I have good news!"
Yep! A guy with the title of the Fire Lord is just walking around like some middle manager in an office building. No big deal.
He's got a couple of guards. No one looks scared or intimidated. The set is mundane. The camera angle is flat.
You might as well have him turn to the audience and say, "Hello.
I'm the Fire Lord. You may remember me from the popular animated television program.
I will be your villain for this evening." If you've never seen the TV show
After seeing the movie, it might surprise you to know that for nearly 3 full seasons,
this is how the Fire Lord was depicted on TV.
That's right. He was a shadow behind a line of fire. Even Voldemort would be like, "Geez, tone it down bud!"
All this is about storytelling
efficiency. You want to communicate the most amount of story in the least amount of time.
Which is why I'm especially irked by the establishing shots for locations in the film.
There's sort of a language in how you shoot environments that tell the audience what to think. For instance, in this shot
we zoom all the way into the Fire Nation boat. You might think that we're going to go inside the boat,
kind of like this shot.
But nope! We immediately pop back to the Water Tribe. This shot just starts one second too early.
If you start the shot here it becomes a nice reveal of the temple instead they dissolve into the shot without any ceremony and then
try to do a reveal on something that was
already revealed. They figure this out by the time we get to the second temple, though.
So, well done there. Because it's not every establishing shot
I'm complaining about. A bunch of them are just fine. Actually, this one is really good for when
Zuko meets Zhau for the first time (but that's just because I like my children's movies with dick jokes in them!)
But then there is this shot...
now, what about this shot tells you that this place will be called the Fire Nation? The only answer is the subtitle so you might as
well just skip this shot since it accomplishes nothing and just stick the
subtitle in the next scene. If you want to really let us know we're in the Fire Nation,
then an establishing shot should look like this...
Or this shot, we have Zhao and the Fire Lord meeting
in like a
palace-type place. Now way in the
background you can see an army marching. That should have been the focus of the scene. Kind of like this shot...
What I'm saying is, is that if you're making a movie where the bad guys are an evil empire called the Fire Nation and you're
not making visual references to the Nazis? You're not doing it right.
There's just so much sloppy filmmaking here. Like this close up. That's way, way too close!
I mean,
are you trying to film his pores
Shyamalan? Or here's Zhao is falling out of the frame because Cliff Curtis is too tall. So, most of these examples
have one thing in common:
The Fire Nation and it's all part of the reason for why they feel like such a non threat in this movie.
They've got scary costumes
but the editing, scene construction and
cinematography undermines the threat they pose to the viewer. And this is doubly true since they change the mythology of
firebending. On the show, Firebenders can create fire anywhere and are thus always a threat. In the movie,
they are de-powered and can only control already-existing fire. Now,
I'm not complaining about that because they changed the source material
but I am complaining about it because it means there's less tension in the movie. Also, if Firebenders can only bend
existing fire,
how does Zuko melt the ice at the end of the movie? So, like their hands can create heat but not fire?
Did anybody proofread this?
Well, we're almost done here. In Part Three,
I take a deep dive into the finale and look at the aftermath caused by the movie. Thanks for watching and don't forget to subscribe!